Zapak Adds Single Player Mobile Games From Greystripe

A few months ago, we’d written about the launch of Zapaks mobile site - Zapak.mobi, in collaboration with Cotopia. What had suprised us then, was the sheer lack of games - just seven. However, we’d also pointed out then that the games launched were essentially turn-based multiplayer games.

Zapak has now launched single player mobile games in partnership with Greystripe, which has a far more robust catalogue of over 900 advertising supported games. Also worth nothing that the turn-based multiplayer games have been pushed into the background with this move, and the single player games load on the front page. Remember what Jump Games CEO Salil Bhargava had told us - Single Player Casual Games are what sell in the mobile gaming business.

At present, there are essentially two players competing in the Indian market. Both Greystripe and Hovr provide games to users for free, and monetize by displaying advertisements before and after the game. Greystripe had tied up with the ABP group to launch Mjoy4free a year or so ago, but that was eventually was shut down. Hovr has since partnered with Indiatimes and NDTV Convergence to power their mobile games sites.

Difference between Hovr and Greystripe (more…)

Reliance Entertainment To Enter Online Advertising With Kyphy

Update #2: While Reliance Entertainment declined to comment before this post went up, they subsequently told Alootechie that Kyphy is intended to be an ad network, not an ad marketplace. So, yet another publisher is entering the ad-network space.

Update: That Reliance BIG Entertainment is looking to enter the online advertising space is confirmed, but it appears that the agenda for Kyphy isn’t very clear - whether it is intended to be a network or an exchange. We’ll try and get more clarity from Sudipto Majumdar, former CTO of Zapak, who is leading this project.

Original story: Reliance BIG Entertainment is in the process of launching an advertising marketplace called Kyphy. According to their website, Kyphy will “create an automated advertising exchange to enhance the efficiency of both buying and selling inventory.”

There are a large number of advertising networks in India, but this is the first attempt at an online advertising exchange. This is essentially the marketplace model, which connects both advertiser, ad networks and publishers, and appears to be based on a concept similar to that of the Right Media Exchange; Yahoo had acquired Right Media for $680 million in April last year. Right Media takes a commission of around 10 percent cut from the transaction between advertisers and publishers.

Reliance BIG Entertainment has online properties like BIGFlix (Online Movie Streaming), BIGAdda (social networking), Zapak (Casual and Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming), and will probably sell inventory from their properties as well - thus there is a case for a conflict of interest between the exchange business and publishing business. The exchange will have to be transparent and independent of their websites, and indeed, of an ad network if BIG Entertainment were to launch one.

There have been attempts at advertising exchanges on the Internet in the past in India - Dentsu India launched LastMinuteInventory.com earlier this year, to enable TV channels to sell last minute television inventory. There were some concerns though.

I wonder why Yahoo hasn’t launched Right Media in India, though. I’d former Yahoo CEO George Zacharias the same question when Yahoo had acquired a significant stake in ad network Tyroo, but he hadn’t offered a specific answer.

Update: Reliance Entertainment has declined to comment on Kyphy at this point in time.

Adlabs Gets Into The Digital Cinema Business

While Bharti Airtel is still considering the digital cinema business, Adlabs has announced plans for digitizing 500 cinema screens over the next 18 months, reports ET. Adlabs has access to Reliance Communications’ optic fibre network, and also plans to leverage the network owned by Reliance Globalcom (FLAG Telecom), for global digital distribution. Adlabs Digital Cinema, with Patrick von Sychowski as its COO, is encoding the films at DAKC in Mumbai.

The model for digital distribution used by UFO Moviez and Pyramid Saimira involved encryption of films, and then distribution of the content via satellite to theatres. A setup at the theatres would decrypt and project the film on screen. The same will probably apply to Adlabs, except that the distribution will be via an optical fibre network, not satellite. Digital Distribution enables exhibition of content in remote areas, particularly on the day of the release. Earlier, prints were distributed physically, where there was a risk of theft and piracy, and remote areas would be able to screen the films much later than a city release.

This move by Adlabs highlights the advantages of being present across the value chain for ADAG: keep in mind that Pyramid Saimira pulled out of the business in 33 theatres in India, citing a lack of viability.

Also check out: Adlabs Digital Cinema COO Patrick von Sychowski’s blog, here.

Related:

- Pyramid Saimira Winds Up Film Distribution In India; Defers Reel Acquisition
– Airtel Considering The Digital Cinema Business
– UFO Moviez Group Buys Defunct VoD Service MovieBeam

Reliance ADA Group Inks BIG $1.2 Billion Dreamworks Deal

The Reliance ADA Group and the principals of Dreamworks - director Steven Spielberg and CEO Stacey Snider - have inked a deal to form a $1.2 billion studio, reports WSJ. Of this amount, the ADA Group will invest $500 million in equity, and $700 million in debt through JP Morgan Chase. The ADA Group, according to the Hollywood Reporter (THR), will have a 50 percent stake in the deal.

The deal has been struck through Reliance Entertainment, according to Business Standard. In 2005, Reliance ADAG had acquired 51 percent stake in Adlabs Films, which produces films, and also owns multiplex theatres. Last year, they acquired Pune based animation company Anirights, which has been rebranded as BIG Animation

The studio will produce around six films a year. Dreamworks reportedly intends to strike a deal with Time Warner for HBO, and the films may be distributed by Universal Pictures. There are, however, expected to be a few teething troubles: Dreamworks was sold to Viacom in 2006, and Spielberg and Snider have had disagreements with Paramount Pictures. Dreamworks is expected to negotiate for rights to keep one or more projects that they were working on with Paramount, for the new company. That, it is expected, will come at a price. There are around 150 Dreamworks executives currently with Paramount, and while David Geffer, Spielberg and Snider had exit clauses, the rest will need Paramounts permission.

George Soros Connection? Paramount had sold controlling interest in its Dreamworks acquisition for $900 million to the Soros Group and Dune Capital in May 2006. Remember that Reliance Entertainment is expected to raise $100 million from George Soros…though there have been reports of issues over valuation.

BIG Entertainment Acquires 75% Stake In Willow TV; $60-70 Million Investment; IPL Streaming Rights For Americas;

Reliance BIG Entertainment, an Anil Ambani company, has acquired a 75% stake in Willow.tv, an online Cricket streaming site. WSJ adds that Reliance will spend $60 million to $70 million on the acquisition and expansion of the portal. Willow.tv claims a million registered users, but that number doesn’t mean a thing without their prized assets - the America rights for streaming Cricket matches. They own the rights to stream Indian Premier League (IPL) matches in the Americas for the next five years.

Thus, Reliance Entertainment has also acquired the IPL streaming rights for the Americas for the next five years.

Around the time that they announced the IPL deal, Willow had also tied up with Reliance Entertainment company BIGFlix for “Ticket to Cricket“, offering US based customers coupons for watching Cricket matches on Willow.tv. I wonder if the talks for the deal germinated around that time, or whether the deal had already been done, and is only being announced now.

How Will Reliance Leverage This Acquisition?
Reliance Entertainment will use the “Network Effect” that Network18 keeps talking about - try to sell combo offers for Cricket, with India Calling Cards or BIGFlix. Willow already has ads from BIGFlix and Reliance Global Call.

Related:
– BIGFlix Targets Rs. 10 Crore Ad Revenue, 5000 Film Catalog, 200 Rental Outlets By March09
– On IPL Season 2: The real challenge lies in Season 2: Sundar Raman, CEO, IPL

BIGFlix Targets Rs. 10 Crore Ad Revenue, 5000 Film Catalog, 200 Rental Outlets By March09

It’s a year since BIGFlix.com launched its online streaming business, and 10 months since the video rental business was soft launched. The full fledged launch of the rental business, particularly the retail stores, took place in May 2008. Still, the online business accounts for only 20 percent of revenues. so is the Video on Demand business struggling? MediaNama gleaned this from an interview with Kamal Gianchandani, COO of BIGFlix. We also spoke to him about targets, and content consumption trends, but he was rather reticent offering revenue numbers:

Video on Demand Business (Vod)
Revenues & Revenue Share
VoD accounts for 20 percent of current revenues, mostly through downloads since advertising was launched hardly a month ago. “We’ve just launched advertising from VDOpia, 15 days to a month ago, so its too early to talk numbers, but we knew this is an advertising dependent business, so have had to build pageviews. We’ve refrained from going out and securing advertisements until now.” BIGFlix has set an advertising-sales target of Rs. 10 crores by March 2009. For content downloads, they share 25-40 percent of revenue with content providers.
Isn’t that lower than Rajshri’s - which is at around 50 percent?
“In some cases we might extend it to 50 percent, in case of some titles. Each player will have a different take on this.”
Traffic
BIGFlix claims 50 million pageviews banner impressions (see update below)/month, and 3 million unique visitors….(ED: 17 pageviews per unique visitor is rather high, isn’t it?). They’re targeting 100 million pageviews/month by March 2009
Marketing Spends
BIGFlix intends to spend Rs. 5 Crores on advertising in the overseas market, with ads in 200 multiplexes.
Catalog
We have 1350 films, out of which 500 are regional. 25-30 percent of that is Malayalam. Hindi and Bollywood dominate. We’re planning to add 5000 films by the end of the financial year, of which 50-60 percent will be Hindi, tmayhe rest regional. Also looking to add Gujarati, Bengali and Oriya content.

More on content consumption trends and the Rental business - (more…)

BigAdda Doesn’t Appear To Be Adding 15000 Users/Day…

It just doesn’t add up. On 8th January this year, BigAdda released usage numbers for their site, claiming 1.24 million users, and adding 12000-15000 users per day. It’s been 233 days since then, and at an average rate of 12000 users added daily, they should have had 4,036,000 by now. But BIG Addas new COO Shivanandan Pare claims (via PTI) they now have 2.5 million users, which actually amounts to an addition of 5407 users per day since Jan 8th. So there have probably been many days of “below average” user-addition over the past few months.

Nevertheless, Pare is bullish: he claims they’re adding 15000 users per day, which is around the rate they’ll need to maintain to reach their target of 10 million users by 2010. But if they maintain the below average rate of 5500 users/day, they’ll only have 5.25 million users. Do bear in mind that a user base of 5 million users not a small number if you only consider Internet users, but I do feel that if they push the mobile version of BIGAdda (MobileAdda) hard enough, and more importantly, are able to get on to the operator decks, they might well be able to achieve that target of 10 million users. Bear in mind that Googles Orkut, is believed to a user base of over 10 million in India.

Aside of the userbase numbers, it’s been a year since Rajesh Sawhney, President of Reliance Entertainment told me that BigAdda expects to break even in around three years; BIGAdda began monetizing in June, according to Pare, and he mentions a revenue target of $4-5 million (Rs. 17.5-22 crores) over the next 12 months, and a break-even in 2-3 years.

Oh, and I just checked: MobileAdda is now accessible via Airtel…it wasn’t when we’d first reported on the launch of BigAdda’s mobile version.

– BIGAdda Goes Mobile; WAP Site Blocked By Airtel?